People Whose Stuff I Like

So far, my winter break has been an endless vortex of working retail 20+ hours a week, babysitting my sister, bingeing “Friday Night Lights,” and writing scholarship essays so I can (hopefully) study abroad this summer. As a much-needed break I, as a lover of lists, have decided to steal Mara Wilson’s page and make a post about the things I’ve been reading/listening to/interested in lately, so others (that means you) can check them out, too.

How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran — Before college I never gave feminism a thought, and I most certainly didn’t think of myself as a feminist. Things have most certainly changed, and can best be encapsulated with one of Moran’s many, many quotable lines in this book: “So here is the quick way of working out if you’re a feminist. Put your hand in your underpants. a) Do you have a vagina? and b) Do you want to be in charge of it? If you said ‘yes’ to both, the congratulations! You’re a feminist!”

Christopher Poindexter — I’m a hopeless romantic and Poindexter speaks to me like no other poet has. I’m forever in debt to my friend who first sent me one of his poems when I was feeling sad.

This tweet I found while Twitter-stalking Brian Hiatt, my favorite “Rolling Stone” writer.

Muskrat Love — I got a record player for Christmas and I’m absolutely in love with it. As a joke, my mom got me a Captain and Tennille record. But the joke’s on her because I’ve been playing it more than any other album I got, even “Imagine.” Looks like Muskrat Love, y’all.

Lady Gaga. — I have always had a deep love for Gaga since I first heard “Poker Face” play on the radio in eighth grade. I think we should all look up to Lady Gaga. She exemplifies what someone’s capable of if they a) be who they want to be and b) do it with bravery. This year she belted at the Academy Awards, slayed as The Countess on “American Horror Story: Hotel,” and made me weep with her song “Til It Happens to You,” a tribute to survivors of sexual assault. She’s a huge role model of mine.